"THE POET."
181
plain and wholesome language of Emerson on is the whole more needed now than it was when spoken. His words have often been ex
The
tolled for their stimulating quality; following the same analogy, they are, as in this address, in
a high degree tonic, bracing, strengthening to the American, who requires to be reminded of his privileges that he may know and find him self
equal to his duties.
On the first day of August, 1844, Emerson delivered in Concord an address on the Anni versary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West India Islands. This discourse
would not have satisfied the Abolitionists. It was too general in its propositions, full of humane and generous sentiments, but not looking to their extreme and immediate method of action. Emerson's second
series of
Essays was pub
There are many sayings in the lished in 1844. " The called Poet," which are meant for Essay the initiated, rather than for
read
him who
runs, to
:
" All that
we
birth of a poet
Does
this
were the
is
call sacred history attests that the the principal event in chronology."
sound wild and extravagant ?
political
What
ups and downs of the Hebrews,